NASA has announced that it has awarded Bigelow Aerospace a contract to build an inflatable module for the International Space Station. The contract is worth $17.8 million, but further details have not yet been disclosed. NASA and Bigelow will be announcing the details at a conference tomorrow, January 16, at Bigelow Aerospace’s North Las Vegas facilities. Both NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver and Bigelow Aerospace President Robert Bigelow will be on-hand to announce the details.

Though we won’t know exactly what the inflatable module will be until tomorrow, we can venture a guess or two based on Bigelow Aerospace’s company mission. The overall goal of Bigelow is to offer cheap, affordable spaceflight alternatives to corporate and national clients. Rather than using some kind of newly discovered, super cheap material, Bigelow intends to provide these alternative options with inflatable craft. The structures aren’t made from weak material like inflatable chairs or balloons, but use Vectran, a material that is twice the strength of Kevlar.

As for what the module could be, speculation suggests that it could be the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM). The BEAM module is essentially a storage module, and Bigelow claims that it could be sent into orbit within two years.

The conference will be held at 1:30PM EST tomorrow, so be sure to look back for news regarding what kind of expandable habitat (or storage facility!) Bigelow will be producing for NASA and the ISS.